Dubai Is the New Mecca for Theme Parks

The big US amusement companies—Six Flags, Universal, SeaWorld, Warner Bros., MGM—have all seen the future, and it's in Dubai. That's where the world's largest playland—a sprawling $64-billion collection of theme parks, golf courses, museums and hotels—is going up, but it's only the most dramatic of projects in the works all over the Middle and Far East, the Los Angeles Times reports.

Abu Dhabi, Shanghai, Singapore and South Korea will all soon be homes to massive entertainment centers, if not quite as massive as Dubailand. The ventures offer big tourism dollars for their host countries, while American companies benefit from licensing royalties and cuts of park revenues without facing much financial risk. An analyst calls the phenomenon “the perfect storm.” (More amusement parks stories.)